Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Match Report: 05/09: vs Thunderdawgs

This time I am just going to start my report with a simple statement: Once again, our captain was on a rampage of losing tosses and now this has been taken out of the team’s equation for winning. The formula no longer includes the toss factor in it, because win or lose, the toss really does not matter for us, and the way our Captain has been leading our team to victories one after another, he surely can send the critics a run for their money when we discuss the topic of losing tosses. This has been the best start of any of the seasons that we have played so far, and a lot of credit directly or indirectly must go to the Captain – Darshil (Dagga Sheth), even though he ends up losing tosses one after the other. It is his gratitude that he loses the toss, the teams make us field first, and thus our captain generously helps our bowlers to get to a great start early on. LOL. Well this Saturday was no different, and the opposition – Thunderdawgs – made us field first.

It has now become a monotonous routine to see Bhupesh and Nirmam open up the bowling for us, and on each occasion they have put the batsman on the back foot from ball one. Wickets come and go, but the hard work and persistence pays off as these two bowl 5-6 overs in tandem, with the opposition score reading a ridiculously low 6-8 runs and to have some icing on the cake, they could be down by 2-3 wickets. But, this was going to be a different day altogether, with not just the bowling but the fielding stints too. A lot of credit goes to the opposition’s batsman who supported us by causing 4 run-outs. The bowlers did their job well sending down only 6 extras, and this shows what a big difference it makes when there is a tight grip on the extras. Batsmen don’t get those extra 1-2 runs per over to ease the pressure, and as a result they are forced to play shots, which gives us even more chances to get them out, or in the heat of the moment they go for suicidal runs thus resulting into run-outs.

The only complain that we have ever had are not from our dugout, or the opposition’s dugouts, but from two different dugouts which are not even on the field except for the fact that they stand behind the stumps and turn down the ferocious appeals of our keeper Ronak or just blindly rule down the run-out appeals of our VC – Aditya. They don’t even get scared with the fact that these two people, whom they are trying to rattle, Ronak, who will avenge his turned down appeals, by hitting the bowler all over the 360, and Aditya who will avenge his shouts, by sending a couple of beamers and bouncers with his extremely drastically Slow Right Finger Stomach Spin bowling … Well time will give a chance to the Immortals to take revenge on all these umpires who just have some kind of grudge to take out on us whenever they come to our game.

Thunderdawgs a respectable team in the league, were left reeling at 38 for 9 after an attacking opening spell from Bhupesh, Nirmam with some great middle order bursts, cooking the batsman into a pressure cooker by Aditya, Jaishal and Karan (Keko). With Aditya and Keko getting two wickets a piece, and Jaishal bagging one in his kitty, the other 4 wickets were simply outstanding brilliance in the field. Although a dropped catch from my hands should have triggered a series of abuses from my team-mates, the batsman just thought to give their support to me and set off for a second run when I dropped that catch, and I was not far behind when I pounced this chance to avoid a thrashing from my mates and got the batsman run out from a dropped catch. Another brilliant effort from Aditya was turned down by the umpire but Keko was not leaving anything to chances as he too played his part alongside Viral and Darshil to result into 4 runouts. If it had not been for the umpire’s aging mistake, Thunderdawgs would have been all out for 38-40 runs, but instead a decision where even the batsman was about to walk, was turned down, and they managed to score 11 runs off the last over, to reach 49 runs off 20 overs for the loss of 9 wickets.

Ronak was all fired up, and pissed at the umpire, and declared that he is going to quit wicket keeping and instead Samy (Me) will be the wicket keeper. He instead will take Aditya’s position in the bowling department, as our VC has been bowling a tremendously snail type slow speed deliveries, but the difference would be that Ronak would love to bowl from the striker’s end into the non-striker, and aim for the Umpire’s B****. Nevertheless, he was just pacing relentlessly to start the innings alongside Darshil. Luckily enough, this time my DSLR was around and that too with a tripod. So that was less effort for me to just stand there and click some pics which are shared below.

The chase for 50 off 20 overs began slowly, but steadily and both the batsman started firing some quick runs, pacing their game nicely to give the Immortals a solid start. The score was never meant to be a challenging total especially the way our batsman have been clicking in different innings. It could be anyone’s day anytime and that is a great quality for a team. Any win, or any loss should never be an individual’s blame, but a team’s game. Darshil was a bit reluctant to go after the bowlers and play his natural game, and he regretted that a bit later, when he was bowled by what seemed the only good delivery of the entire Thunderdawg’s bowling side. Our captain regretted for not playing his natural game but then he is the opener. He is going to get a lot of chances down the line with some more important games coming up.

It was left to Sannato (Viral) and Ronak to steer the ship back home, and both did splendidly well to cruise along at 50 for 1 off just 14.2 overs. The man of the match was Ronak for his 25 not out, 2 caught behinds, and his part in couple of run-outs. The joy that overwhelmed everyone on the field was of not yet going down this season and with one more win, the score now reads 6-0. The Immortals are still unbeaten this season, with many more to come. It was time for an update to the pic on the blog, and we rightly did so as you will see the profile pic has now changed.

Couple of things that I would like to mention:- The Immortals got their first kit and hopefully the t-shirts are on the way.- Chasing or Defending – The Immortals have now done it all this season and have done it with great style and confidence ..- No game has been a one- man show, with everyone contributing in some way or the other..- Most IMP – No superstitious beliefs now can bog us down, as this time I deliberately highlighted our game in my Cricbox edition on Cricbay, and winning this game, proved that the Immortals are now way ahead of those old beliefs. Unless we all want to blame something or the other for any of our losses, we don’t think there is any need to talk about superstitions when we are playing so confidently.

Great game, great win with many more on the road …Next up is Cosmos CC to make it 7-0.